Public attitudes towards traffic regulation, compliance, and enforcement in urban areas of the United Kingdom were examined in a study for the U.K. Department of Transport, through a series of group discussions among road users and a national quantitative survey. Most drivers admitted to breaking at least some types of traffic regulation, and drivers and nondrivers generally agreed on which were the most serious offenses - usually those with a perceived safety or congestion impact. Twelve factors were identified that affected compliance levels in urban areas: physical ease of offending, quality of the traffic signs, existence of exemptions for certain groups, perceived rationale behind the regulation, persons adversely affected by noncompliance, convenience of legal alternatives, enforcement level and penalty, magnitude of the infringement, the importance of the trip, compliance by others, personal predisposition, and familiarity with the area. In addition, it was found that people have a sense of territory in their local area and may ignore traffic regulations that are felt to be there to control through-traffic. Despite the common use of personal judgment about when to comply, virtually everyone accepted the need for traffic regulation and wanted better enforcement of certain offenses, such as dangerous driving and illegal parking; where the latter caused congestion or a safety hazard, there was also strong support for towing away the offending vehicle. By better understanding which regulations people regard as reasonable and why, it should be possible to increase compliance levels without additional enforcement resources. (This paper also appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1270 'Safety research : accident studies, enforcement, ems, management, and simulation', 1990.
Samenvatting